


where freedom lies

by VeloxVoid



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anxiety, Bonding, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feelings Realization, Flying, Garreg Mach Monastery (Fire Emblem), Marianne von Edmund Needs A Hug, Points of View, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Self-Reflection, Soft Claude von Riegan, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 22:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30046008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid
Summary: When Claude takes Marianne on an unexpected flight over the beautiful grounds of Garreg Mach, she realises that there is far more to the Golden Deer leader than she once expected. Together, they reflect on the state of the world, and uncover more about each other on the journey.
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	where freedom lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [legendofthesevenstars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendofthesevenstars/gifts).



> Thank you to Sevenstars for requesting such a lovely, beautiful idea! It was so fun to write and I really hope you enjoy it :)

The stables, more often than not, were empty just before dinner. When the rest of the Golden Deer forces ran to Garreg Mach’s dining hall, prepared to occupy themselves for an hour over food and drink and idle chit-chat, Marianne would find solace in the stables.

No other people — just the horses, the pegasi, the wyverns, and her. The young woman could stroke Dorte’s nose, brush his long, unruly fur, and make soft conversation to him unburdened by the worries plaguing her. That was the sort of calm she needed in her life now, mere weeks away from yet another battle in the Goddess-forsaken war.

 _When will it end?_ she would ask Dorte today. When could she go back to a normal life? A life away from battling and strife and death. Would she even _live_ to see such a time? Would this next battle be her last?

She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

As she headed across the packed-earth path into the stables, with only the destination of Dorte’s pen on her mind, Marianne was taken aback by the presence of somebody else standing in the stable courtyard, causing her to stop dead in her tracks.

Claude von Riegan looked up at once from where he stood with his wyvern, adjusting the saddle upon the creature’s back. He brought up one hand to shield his eyes against the setting sun, but broke into a smile as his gaze settled upon Marianne.

“Knew I’d find you here!” the Golden Deer leader called over to her.

 _Huh?_ Had he been… looking for her? Marianne swallowed and continued towards him. “May I help you with something, Claude…?” she asked, hearing her voice catch quietly in her throat. 

She reached Claude’s side, and watched him fasten the saddle in place. His wyvern’s tail beat the ground behind it happily, stirring up a cloud of dust. Claude chuckled. “So this is where you always sneak off to before dinner!” He beamed at Marianne, scratching his wyvern beneath the chin.

“My apologies,” she muttered. “I prefer to eat when the hall is more empty…”

“No need to apologise,” he replied, looking into her eyes with his own of dazzling green. Today, Claude’s eyes danced. Marianne had seen them plenty as of late, giving them the latest war updates, working through battle strategies, talking seriously with Seteth. Lately, they’d always looked so serious. Stern, hard, concerned.

But not now. Now, Claude’s face adopted an easy smile with eyes that shone like fields of grass beneath the sun.

“You look happy,” Marianne said, scarcely realising she’d spoken aloud.

Claude cocked his head, shooting her the smile that lit up his face handsomely. “I do?”

“Yes. For the first time in a while.”

He chuckled then. “Well, that might be because I’ve got a cunning plan.”

 _Oh, no._ Marianne pleaded silently with the Goddess that he hadn’t taken up his days of pranking once more. She kept calm, tried desperately to quell the anxiety rising within her. “Is there something I may assist with? You said you were looking for me.”

“Definitely,” Claude responded. “Say, you’ve never taken flying lessons, have you?”

Marianne pressed her lips together. Why did a little flush of embarrassment heat her cheeks at his words? “N-no, I haven’t…” She preferred riding on the ground — atop Dorte, hearing his hoofbeats against the grass and watching the world pass them by in a blur of speed.

“Then I’d like you to take a flight with me.” He pat his wyvern’s nose, and it snuffled happily.

Marianne’s blood ran cold. “You want me to...?”

“Just me and you, no biggie. Well, and my trusty boy here, of course.” Claude looked so relaxed — so calm and nonchalant as he patted his wyvern’s head — that Marianne was left to wonder what was going on. What had he planned? What was this all about? Regardless, it would be impossible to say no to the man; it was almost as though he’d made the decision for her already.

Thus, she merely looked down at her fingers, which had begun to play around one another anxiously. “Um… I can’t assure you I’ll be a _confident_ flyer…”

“Nobody is on their first try, trust me.” And one of Claude’s hands reached out to take her own, guiding her towards the wyvern’s saddle.

 _Oh dear._ The nerves Marianne had fought to quash resurfaced tenfold.

He helped her up onto the strange, thick stirrups that accompanied wyvern saddles, and directed her to sit close to the saddle’s front. Afterwards, he climbed up himself, sitting behind her and holding onto her shoulders reassuringly.

“See?” he remarked, a smile audible in his voice. “Nothin’ to be afraid of.”

But Marianne _was_ afraid. “Claude,” she began, hating how grating her voice sounded. She turned a little in her seat, twisting so as to get a view of him. “Please, may I ask what this is about?” If she was in trouble, she wanted to know. If Claude needed to tell her something, she’d rather he simply did so without beating around the bush. Marianne von Edmund had never done well with suspense; all it served was to make her a shaking, anxious mess, terrified she’d fumbled something as she always inevitably did.

Claude, however, simply wrapped his arms around her waist, making butterflies shoot through her stomach for just a split second before she realised he was simply taking hold of the wyvern's reins.

“I just think you deserve a little break once in a while, that’s all,” he said, his voice low and rumbling by her ear. That made her stomach flutter a little.

Without warning, Claude spurred his wyvern onwards with the reins, and the creature took off at a run. Marianne was jostled, holding onto its neck for dear life. Wyverns were not like horses; they ran so much more clumsily. Dorte’s gait was smooth and comfortable, but as this creature cantered onwards, reaching a gallop, Marianne was rattled around so vigorously in the saddle she felt motion sick.

As they neared the end of the stables’ pathway, the wyvern outstretched his two magnificent wings and leapt into the air. Propelled by the momentum, he beat them fiercely once, twice, three times, until he caught a gust of wind.

They were off. His wings worked powerfully against the air, each beat of them causing a tumultuous _swoop_ ing sound on both sides that did nothing to quell Marianne’s rising panic. As she watched the monastery grounds recede below them, brick paths becoming snaking lines of grey, trees becoming like pinheads, she felt her stomach drop.

This couldn’t be safe! She wasn’t strapped in, nor sitting properly in her saddle, and clung even tighter onto the wyvern’s neck as she let out the most pathetic of squeals. The sound became caught on the breeze immediately, snatched away by the gusts whipping around their ears. The wyvern climbed higher into the air, up and up until Marianne felt a tightness against her head and her ears begin to pop.

Only then, as she buried her face further into the wyvern’s neck, the scales scratchy against her delicate skin, did Claude’s arms move again. He adjusted the reins, muttered a calming remark in some other language, and his wyvern’s flight began to slow. Now only occasionally did he beat his wings, the wind rushing past her ears lulling to become a smooth, gentle breeze.

And when Marianne finally felt safe enough to lift her head, her heartbeat quickened but level, the breath was pulled from her lungs.

The three of them soared above the grounds of Garreg Mach, the scene seemingly miles below them. Claude’s wyvern coasted upon a warm air current, one that tousled Marianne’s hair slightly, threatening to loose it from her braids. They were climbing gently upwards in a steady circle, watching the world like angels — like the Goddess herself would — from the sky.

Below, the monastery itself looked no more than a doll house — small enough for her to cup in her hands, its grey bricks bathed in golden light beneath the sun’s setting rays, which leached their handsome amber colour into the azure sky from behind the mountains. From all the way up here, the landscape stretched incredibly; the fields which were usually obscured behind Garreg Mach’s walls covered the land like a virescent blanket, littered with patchwork wildflowers and crawling with animals. Small brown groups signified deer, with grey and beige blotches appearing to be mountain goats and sheep near the rocky crags.

Yet even so, this world, to Marianne, did not look _limitless._ Garreg Mach was nestled between the Oghma Mountains on three sides, and at the remaining side, a vast expanse of dark conifer trees reached out into the world beyond: a natural border of forest. While there were miles upon miles of hills and fields before reaching any of these barriers, Marianne still couldn’t help but notice how… trapped the little monastery looked.

She was in the sky, almost touching the white wisps of clouds billowing across the aether, and yet still she didn’t feel free.

Perhaps it was that dull ache inside her chest, the one that never went away. The one that told her no matter where she went, or how hard she tried, she would always be tethered down by the blackness to her blood. 

“Bet you’ve never seen Garreg Mach like this before, have you?” asked Claude, voice raised so as to be heard over the wind.

Marianne looked down at it again — its tiny spires, crenellations like a child’s building blocks — and felt a smile cross her lips. “I haven’t,” she responded, feeling her voice become snatched away by the current’s volume. “It’s beautiful,” she then continued, a little louder this time.

“It is, isn’t it?” Claude remarked. “I just wanted to show you, since I know you never had the chance.”

Almost as if she had been bathing beneath the setting sun, Marianne felt her heart grow warm. “You need not go to such lengths for me, Claude,” she said on instinct; the idea of anybody going out of their way for her made her feel queasy. Yet still she appreciated it — appreciated Claude's gesture. Appreciated Claude himself.

“I wanted to,” he replied, the slightest of chuckles sounding from his throat.

After that, they fell silent again, Marianne’s stomach dropping as the wind caused the wyvern to dip slightly. They circled slowly downwards again, and Marianne’s eyes drifted once more to the horizon, cut off by the red-brown crags of Oghma in the distance.

She spoke suddenly, surprising even herself. “I’m up here in the open sky, and yet still I feel trapped.”

The words hung heavy in the crisp light air for a moment, Claude silently considering them. After a while, he picked up. “Strangely, I know just what you mean.” He tugged slightly on the reins once more and his wyvern’s wings began to flap, taking the two of them onwards, traversing the skies to coast over the fields and hills. “We should be free and boundless up here, yet something stops us from feeling so.”

Marianne’s heart leapt slightly in her chest. “Precisely,” she said.

“I’ve come to realise that it isn’t the natural borders that restrain us.”

That made Marianne blink, panic beginning to lace her blood. Only a moment ago she’d been thinking about her Crest — her curse — and how that could be the reason stopping her from ever feeling free. Did Claude somehow… know about it?

“The skies triumph over all natural borders, really,” he carried on, voice a little wistful. “One can fly over the lands, walls, mountains, forests, even the seas… No, instead it’s those _imposed_ borders that stop us.”

 _Oh, Goddess._ Marianne swallowed a lump that had risen to her throat. “Imposed borders?” she managed.

“We all live in the same land — this incredible, vast continent, with so much culture and history... yet some people let that divide us.”

Marianne’s gaze had drifted to the trees; while once they had all looked one big mass of green, now that they were closer, she recognised all different types of trees within it. Some had the almost teal-hued sprigs of fir, others were the richer green of spruce, and more bore the dark spines of pine. A mass that had once looked so uniform to her — the forest one looming entity — she now realised was made up of many different individual parts.

“Marianne, I know you don’t let yourself be free because something inside of you won’t allow it. And I can’t be free because…” He trailed off, and when Marianne glanced behind her towards him, she saw him staring across the landscape as well. “... because a bunch of nobles say I don’t belong.”

“I’m… so sorry,” she whispered.

“That’s all I strive for, with this war,” he continued, quieter this time. “I want to unify this place. No more imposed borders. No more rules dictating why one person belongs and another doesn’t. We’ll still have our differences, but they should be celebrated. We should settle things peacefully.”

In that moment, Marianne realised something she’d been blind to all this time — all these years.

Claude was amazing. _Incredible._ As he watched over the lands of central Fódlan, his eyes danced with the colours of the setting sun; their emerald hue matched so beautifully the vast expanse of grass all around them, the golden flecks within like the last rays of amber over the horizon.

Claude meant freedom. Just as his visage matched the world that stretched around them, as did his drive; his will. Claude would stop for no boundary. Not physical, not metaphorical. Perhaps the two of them — Claude von Riegan, Marianne von Edmund — weren’t so different after all. In a world led by Claude, perhaps the Crest system wouldn’t dictate so much of a person’s worth; perhaps, finally, she could be free of her curse.

Marianne felt her lips stretch into the first true smile she’d mustered in days. In that moment, she knew the decision she had to make.

Her voice came out louder than anticipated — loud enough to cut over the wind. “I’ll help you, Claude,” she said, causing him to fix those fantastic eyes upon her. “I’ll be with you no matter what it takes.”

He gave her a smile in return, surprise overcoming each of his handsome features. “You will?” he asked, eyes sparkling.

She nodded. “Of course.”

And when Claude wrapped one arm around her shoulders, Marianne finally felt worthy of being touched. For once, she didn’t shy away, nor panic. Instead, she rested her head into the crook of the man’s neck, closing her eyes and breathing in the incredible scent he effused. He smelled like the forest itself — of the handsome pine trees and sweet musk of the underbrush berries.

He held her tightly, and she allowed it. His voice left his throat in a soft, low rumble — one that warmed Marianne down to her core. “I’d rather have nobody else by my side.”


End file.
